This conference explores how risk and breakdown are used both in discourse andin practice. Risk and breakdown are often associated with social panic,surveillance, political unrest, and psychosis. However, these associations neednot be understood as disabling. In what ways can risk and breakdown, ascritical terms and as practices, be productive? How might they help us thinkbeyond the agency/structure paradigm? In particular, we are interested inaddressing the cultural specificities of risk and breakdown and how these termstravel across time, space, and discipline.

We welcome proposals that interrogate risk and breakdown as they relate to thedaily lives of the people we study and our own methodological practices asresearchers. When and where in our research do we encounter risks andbreakdowns? What are the ethical implications of studying people at risk, oreven representing them as such? In what ways can breakdown help us rethink theway we define culture in our work? Proposed papers might explore how thecultural politics of risk and/or breakdown relate to questions ofgovernmentality, human rights, militarism, identity, performativity,medicalization, or the academy. In accordance with our commitment to thetransdisciplinary study of culture, we hope to forge a dialogue betweenstudents of anthropology, history, literary studies, film studies, culturalstudies, sociology, and psychology.

The keynote speaker for the conference is David Graeber, activist and AssistantProfessor of Anthropology at Yale University. Graeber received his Ph.D. inAnthropology from the University of Chicago in 1996. He began his careerworking on rural politics in Madagascar, and has more recently taken upinnovative projects focusing on anarchism and globalization. His publicationsinclude *Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our OwnDreams* (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), *Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology*(Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004), and "The New Anarchists," which appeared in theJan-Feb 2002 issue of the *New Left Review.* In keeping with his commitment toanarchism, Graeber?s forthcoming work, *Direct Action: An Ethnography*,offers an anthropological perspective on direct action.

Papers should not exceed fifteen minutes. The deadline for submission of 250-500word abstracts is January 1, 2006. Please include your name, institutionalaffiliation, e-mail address, and phone number. Abstracts should be submittedvia e-mail to riskandbreakdown_at_yahoo.com. Please checkhttp://culturalanthropology.duke.edu/news/Riskandbreakdown.html for routineupdates about the conference. Information on logistics such as travel andlodging will shortly be available on the website.